Dodgers changing game in N.L. West

Los Angeles Dodgers players, including Skip Schumaker, left, and Jerry Hairston Jr., second from left, celebrate after winning the NL West title with a 7-6 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
— AP

Los Angeles Dodgers players, including Skip Schumaker, left, and Jerry Hairston Jr., second from left, celebrate after winning the NL West title with a 7-6 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 19, 2013, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
/ AP

Sure, they traded a couple of role players for Tyson Ross, resigned Jason Marquis for $3 million and promoted Jedd Gyorko. None of it, however, garnered much attention outside of San Diego, at least not compared to the headlines the Dodgers grabbed with all of their offseason spending.

“This is way different than any other Dodgers club,” said Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers, who has run front offices in the N.L. West for the past 17 years. “Their resources and spending ability is a game-changer for the rest of the division. … They’ve become the New York Yankees of the West Coast when it comes to spending.”

Not that Los Angeles has ever truly skimped on spending – at least compared to the rest of the baseball landscape.

Even during those “lean” Frank McCourt years, the club’s Opening Day payroll averaged $99.6 million and never sank below 12th in the league.

Of course, they had just one $20 million player during those nine years (Manny Ramirez made $23.8 million in 2009). They have four on the roster now and figure to have another when they address Clayton Kershaw’s long-term needs.

So, that Red Sox trade? Clearly that was just the tip of a multi-billion dollar iceberg.

“I think just removing myself as someone who plays the game, I just thought, ‘Wow, they aren’t messing around,” Padres outfielder Will Venable recalled of last year’s headline-grabbing trade with Boston. “They mean business. They are going after whatever it is they want. It’s something this sport doesn’t see a lot of.”

No – at least not outside of New York.

In fact, the Yankees have doled out more than 90 percent of the luxury tax penalties – more than $253 million – collected since its inception in 2003.

Until the Dodgers crested the $189 million threshold this year for a $9.9 million penalty on their now franchise-record payroll, only the Red Sox (2004-07, ’10-11), Angels (2004) and Tigers (2008) had been forced to share their wealth.

After years of so-called “penny-pinching” during the McCourt regime, Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier is among the Guggenheim group’s fans in the clubhouse.

“It’s awesome,” Ethier said. “I was here seven years before this and we were always aware that there were tight restrictions and everything. Now, some other teams might consider all this exuberant … but they are doing things that are necessary to make it happen and accommodate what we need to make these players the best they can be.

“We play in a really big market. You can see that by the TV deal we just got, it’s a big market with a lot of exposure. It should be this way.”

Not that anyone in the N.L. West is throwing their hands up in despair.

The Dodgers, after all, were well on their way to last place in mid-June while chasing a contingent of clubs built around developing homegrown talent.

“We’re not the first team or the last team to have a team in your division that spends a lot more money than you,” Padres general manager Josh Byrnes said. “And obviously, it can make it challenging, but not impossible. That’s what’s great about the game. Recent history shows that it can be done. The financial gap is wide, but you can put a roster together to contend against the biggest spenders, and that’s what we have to do.”

The Dodgers, too, know the Guggenheim checkbook won’t win the division alone. Even with their celebration hangover still lingering a day after clinching the N.L. West, their start to the year was still a sobering reminder of that.

“Just we because we have the best-looking team on paper, doesn’t mean you can just throw them together on the field,” Ethier said. “A lot of people are gunning and going after us just because of that. We just have to go out there every day and prepare for that.”